I don’t know if anybody here has touched on this issue or not but what is entanglement?
I think that the refs in all of these compitions want to avoid controversy by not calling it but what is the point for this rule if NOBODY calls it. In the two regionals events (that i have been to and ones i heard about) there were multiple situations in which entanglement should have been called especially one yesterday in the philadelphia regional. My team 357 was clearly entangled with another robot’s tether (which was a scissor kind of tether)and when we couldnt free ourselves during the time of play, and when we went to take it off the field (even when the judges tried it was still very difficult) we knew surley this would be entanglement. But of course entanglement was not called. I guess im frustrated because some teams kept a tether out of their original design because of this rule… What is the point of having this rule if it is not called?!
I agree, many teams worked long hours trying to figure out how to avoid being called on entanglement, and now it seems that some of the tethers are being overlooked. The rules are not defined well enough. As for the future, I am certainley wondering what kind of rulings they will make at Nationals, or at any other regionals in the next few weeks.
i fully agree i was at philly and they “little robots” my be smart, i saw ur robot get intangled and it shoudl be called. It is a pain in the butt when u work so hard to get somewhere and a team breaks a rule and is allowed willingly to do so, and u lose when u shouldn’t. Can anyone please clarify this rule to me?
I guess it would depend if you ramed the finger then no i wouldn’t call it. I can get a pencil stuck in a wall but i’d have to try. Entanglemnt is just if they purposly try to entangle you or if they have like a cord that could get sucked into a gear. If you ramed them then it would be your fault you got entangled even if that wasen’t your objective. Its mainly a judgmental call.
well i guess thats interesting…because i drive royal assaults robot and we didnt intentionally get tangled nor did we intend on getting entangled…we were actually entangled to the point that the button on our robot broke…which is not hard to fix but it takes alot of force to break it…but on to the entaglement issue, we were about a minute and a half into the match and we were already in our endzone because we had a goals controled but we were trying to get a second…the team deployed the scisor tether as i was driving for that goal in there zone…i got stuck and broke my button and pulled there tether in my zone, got 10 points but we were tangled and wound up losing the match because of it…we lost 42-40…so it was close and it was an important match when it came down to the avereging…when the judge was asked he told me there was no intent to entanlge so its not entanglement…but does anyone really intend on getting entangled?..thanks guys
well i guess thats interesting…because i drive royal assaults robot and we didnt intentionally get tangled nor did we intend on getting entangled…we were actually entangled to the point that the button on our robot broke…which is not hard to fix but it takes alot of force to break it…but on to the entaglement issue, we were about a minute and a half into the match and we were already in our endzone because we had a goals controled but we were trying to get a second…the team deployed the scisor tether as i was driving for that goal in there zone…i got stuck and broke my button and pulled there tether in my zone, got 10 points but we were tangled and wound up losing the match because of it…we lost 42-40…so it was close and it was an important match when it came down to the avereging…when the judge was asked he told me there was no intent to entanlge so its not entanglement…but does anyone really intend on getting entangled?..thanks guys
I wonder the same thing. When I saw the tethers in the competition, I was like “What the heck!?!?” because from my interpretation of the rules they were totally not allowed. In our design faze, we scratched out the idea totally because of there rule. I see the refs are calling a lot of stuff and DQ’ing a lot this season for numerous reasons. I saw a match at Lone Star that I thought surely would have been intanglement but it wasn’t. This is seriously angering me because it is not being called at all yet we were really getting DQ threats from the head judge about the way we lifted the goal from the flanges.(our mechanism frequently slipped off the flanges and reacted against the wood). Now I think if they are going to call that, they should call some entanglement. :mad:We asked the judge about that and she said it depends on what the refs call entanglement, she was very friendly about it though I was not satisfied with the response.
*Originally posted by Anthony S. *
**I saw a match at Lone Star that I thought surely would have been intanglement but it wasn’t. **
Which match? Who was in it? I remember 609 being involved in a shoving match with 235, and their goal grabbers catching, but that’s the only one I can think of. I only watched about half the matches, though, so I can’t say I definately would have seen it anyway.
when the judge was asked he told me there was no intent to entanlge so its not entanglement
thats not the way the rule was explained AT ALL, it was said that NO tethered objects would be allowed to go. Teams like 87 found ways to work around that like thier flag pole, only see other teams having little robots, AND IT BEING LEGAL, thats not rite ladies and gentlemen, not rite at all. I say we get together in nationals and really get to the bottom of why this was all allowed.
agreed, i think this entanglement thing has gone too far, in the previous years this would have been called, but now with “the kinder gentler FIRST” nothing is the same, entanglement needs to change back to the way it was, it has gone to far, now this is whether there is intent or not, it is entanglement no matter how you put it.:mad:
i agree,
one of teh main entanglement violations was that the tether could not go through a goal. However, the firebirds tether ( i have nothing against thefirebirds. thanks for pickings us and also, their tether is extremely effective and only violated entanglement by chance) went through the goal and they were not DQed. other teams tethers, which were in blatant violation of the rules, like an actual tape measure!! were not DQed. I believe in a kinder, genter FIRST, but not a push-over FIRSTI like the argument that the tether must be entangled on purpose or that it didn’t actually get entagled in the match. BUT, that wasn’t the way it was described on Yahoo from FRC almost all questions about tethers stated that if it COULD become entagled it wouldn’t be allowed. I saw all types of things at GLR that should have been DQ’s including a huge piece of carpet being ripped up, robots grabbing hold of the PVC instead of the pipes, tape measures… it goes on and on but no one got DQ’d. And the worst thing is on one match we manuvered our robot to block an advancing tether device, a telescoping one which I feel does meet the rules well and we were actually warned when we made contact with it that we were possibly going to damage it?!! I saw full on hits from robots that is perfectly legal why is blocking a tether from deploying not legal especially if it will change the outcome of the match???
Anyway congrats to all of the great robots at GLR, the coolest tether I saw was the Lake Orion lexan that was soo fast to deploy and actually retract if needed very nice design.
i do have to agree that the tether thing is a very good idea and at the philadelphia regional as well as the lone star regional in texas there were some great tethers my two favorites, one from each regional
Philadelphia- 272 Lansdale Catholic High School had a great tether and and i like the way the wire was controled and the speed and effectiveness, it was consistent
Texas- Team 57 The leapords the had a great tether without a doubt the best in texas
Congratulations to all the teams that have competed and used a tether effectively. I hope to see all of you in Florida for the National Championship. Lets hope the entanglement rule is amended by then also. Mayb not amended because thats not what we want but used more consistently.
Thanks to all of our alliance partners in both regionals, you were great. (21,57,87,and 481) thank you to all the teams in both regionals for being such great sports and to all of you out there
GOOD LUCK in the future.
First, I don’t remember exactly what was said in the Yahoo Message Board, but on Team Update 6 there’s an excerpt of it, and it DOES NOT disallow ANY tether, it just says that something that becomes entangled will be disallowed, and only list devices that COULD become entangled. And, most important of all:
The ultimate determination of what presents a risk of entanglement is
subjective and will be made by inspectors at each competition event, and by the referees in each
match (in the event that something passes inspection but later becomes a problem during a match).
*Originally posted by Perseus *
** one of teh main entanglement violations was that the tether could not go through a goal. However, the firebirds tether ( i have nothing against thefirebirds. thanks for pickings us and also, their tether is extremely effective and only violated entanglement by chance) went through the goal and they were not DQed. **
We (Team 122) and NAVY (Team 165) were against them during this match. Thier partner was dead so we set the field basically exactly the way we wanted it. NAVY did a great job of positioning a goal right in front of 433 on purpose so they couldn’t deploy their tether. They did anyways and it layed right over the goal. Granted we still won the match so we got another 30 QP, We would’ve gotten 150 QP (!!!) if they were DQ’ed, because that was 3 times our score.
~Tom Fairchild~, who only sees this as becoming an even greater problem at Nationals with different divisions and different rulings at each.
originally posted by anomly_rox:
** I say we get together in nationals and really get to the bottom of why this was all allowed.**
O.K. People lets calm down a little bit. I don’t think its that deep for us to get together at nationals and do something, by the time we get to the right people it may be too late. I totally agree that it is wrong but FIRST is human just like us. I realize that there have been many DQ’s for many reasons and I realize that there should have been DQ’s for some stuff. But think about it, if you were that robot who was DQ’d, you would feel very upset. The ref told us when we were warned that she really did not want to DQ us for illegal contact with the goal because of all the hard work we put into it. I have to admit, when we reacted against the wood of the goal, we should have been DQ’d, but we weren’t. So lets not get too angry and lets keep a level head and enjoy this season while it last. I still love FIRST and I’m sure many other people do too.
Anthony S.
Well said!!!
I think that having a lynch mob mentality when arriving at the Nats is going to solve nothing, albeit satisfying personal frustrations. Many of the teams who should have been DQ’d but weren’t have probably learned more from the experience than many care to admit. Folks, we’re here to learn and have fun doing it. Please don’t lose sight of that.
Anthony S.
That was really great what you said. I think cooler heads need ot prevail. The refs in FIRST try hard, but they are volunteers and human like the rest of us. Humans make mistakes. I really hate to see them get bashed. If the enforcement is different in different places, thats just how it is. Life is not always fair and never will be. The most important thing is for us to see past that and let gracious professionalism prevail in all circumstances. The mob mentality will not serve to make things better, rather it will intimidate the very people we respect, who work so very hard to put this competetion on for us. Please everyone, be gracious…
Sean
P.S. Anthony, thanks for having the guts to post what you did. Good Job!!!
clapping
very well done…i am in full agreement with both of you, the first experience is about the fun as much as the experience and i think all too often it is lost. The refs and volunteers give time like our engineers out of their lives to help us, the future, so lets show our gratitude by not making a big fuss over the little things. 
Good Luck…and remember have fun!
As the creator of this thread i did not mean for it to get out of hand and into a mob mentality sort of way. I totally agree with Anthony Kevin and Sean we do need to calm down. I created this thread because i thought i was missing something in this rule. It would be more unfair if the refs now just started to call the entanglement rule down in Nationals because of the teams that depend on thier tether. I’m sorry if I started up a bad topic but I was just wandering if I was missing something. I didnt want it to sound like I was whining. But you guys are right it is agame and its supposed to be a valuable learning experience and so far it is.
Good Luck to all!!!